


All That Glitters

by Sarlona



Category: Elsewhere University (Webcomic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 14:16:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18412340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarlona/pseuds/Sarlona
Summary: The story of how one student ended up staying at Elsewhere, and a little bit of the sacrifices her friends made to ensure she could even do that much.





	All That Glitters

**Author's Note:**

> Technically an AU writing for the D&D characters of one of the campaigns I'm in.

Sunbeam thought she was safe.

She followed the rules, wore the iron, gave the salt, went by a name instead of a Name. She wasn’t out past dark on the roads where hounds bayed, didn’t linger in the places between the motes of dust in the library, bargained nothing and gained nothing.

But you can only be completely safe for so long at Elsewhere, English majors especially.

She chewed on a pen, staring blankly at book she was supposed to be reading as Cowboy complained about his music studies professor, “-anyways, he’s insisting that my interpretation of the work is wrong, so I have to do this extra credit.”

“You’d think a professor on a campus of the Good Neighbors would realize that interpretation varies based on personal experience,” Sunbeam mumbled around the end of her pen, feeling a headache bloom behind her eyes like the multicolor tulips around the greenhouse that one wasn’t supposed to pick.

“I know, right?!” He groaned.

“I’m sure you can ask Jimothy for help,” Sunbeam teased, reaching into the hoard of junk food for a soda and finding only empty cans, “Aw, dammit, Horns drank the last of the Ramune…”

“Yeah, they said they were going to replace it. I think the campus shop is still open, and it’s not a hound night,” He said, stretching his massive form over the lounge in the dorm room, “Want me to come with?”

“Nah, I should be fine, campus shop is only ten minutes away,” She checked the moon phase and grabbed her jacket, deciding to go without shoes this time. Maybe the grass under her feet would ground her a bit.

The night was chilly, wet grass under her as she trekked across campus, lit by the full moon. Soon, her senses alerted her to feeling watched, and she grasped for her iron bracelet and found only the smooth skin of her wrist, and suddenly remembered leaving it on the side of the sink to do dishes, her salt was back in the pile of junk food, all she had was the rowan lotion and vervain shampoo.

The figure that appeared on the edge of her sight looked human, but then again many things did around here. The night was bright, but as soon as she tried to make out details, a cloud passed and the night went dark and cold.

The smell of nicotaiana hit her, and a chuckle of silk and steel met her when she stopped, “Wandering around without your protections, Sunbeam??

“You know my name.”

“I know many things,” The voice shifted around her, to rest somewhere next to her, a little behind her shoulders, “Would you like company on your walk?”

“Freely given?”

“Tell me a story, Sunbeam, and things will be well tonight.”

She shouldn’t take this deal.

What choice did she have? She had no salt, no iron, only floral scents and her own words.

And so she did, telling a story of a crow who stole the moon and kept it as a trinket until the sky begged for it back. And so the moon leaves and returns with every month, back and forth between crow and sky.

When they reached the brightness of the campus shop, her company stopped just outside the halo of light, and she found herself looking at them anyways, and saw only a flash of white teeth in a smile. It abruptly struck her that she was a fly in a spider’s web.

“Mind you don’t become a moon, in two worlds, Sunbeam.”

A shiver ran up her, and she had no response as she entered the store.

When she emerged the night was bright once more, her arms were full of snacks and drinks, and the entity who had taken her story had left for the moment.

She wasn’t a fool enough to think it wouldn’t be back.

Cowboy didn’t ask why she was gone for more than a half hour, perhaps it was because he knew what not to question, but she thought it may have also been because he had gone on another rant about maintenance of guitars.

Despite her encounter, she smiled, because things didn’t have to change despite her close shave.

That said, she wasn’t an idiot. She noticed when things started to change.

Salt ran out more. Things were misplaced, she ran late, she lost her bracelet for a few hours. Anything she tried to replace the jewelry with went missing. Salt lines scattered from the moonlit breeze coming in the open window, and none of those in the dorms could figure out who had left the window open. Cowboy started to notice, and she came clean.

“Sunbeam, are you sure you don’t need to leave for a minute? Make this thing lose interest?” He raised an eyebrow.

“We have midterms coming up, Cowboy, maybe it will lose interest over break,” She shrugged.

“Don’t rely on that,” Horns warned from across the room as they bit into a candy bar, “You never know what the Fair Folk will take as a sign of interest. There was that one deal I made, lost one game of cards and had to change my major to statistics with a minor in foreign languages. I’m garbage at statistics!”

“I doubt this one wants her major,” Seafoam said from across the room as she scratched away at her sheet of notes, “If anything, might be just saving up her favors for later.”

“Oh, because that’s so reassuring,” Horns rolled their eyes and went back to their food before putting their head up again and pointing at Sunbeam with a fork, “Mark my words, Sunbeam, this one is bad news.”

Horns was right and she knew it as she stared down at her sewing project.

But even at Elsewhere University, you could be stuck at a crossroads of decision and not take any road. So she refused to attack or defend, salt or Cats Eye’s glasses, merely watching through mortal views.

The Fae proceeded to join her on future snack runs, and there always seemed to be a time when she was alone that it joined her as well. For a long while she only saw its figure in the darkness, only heard it as a soft voice tinged with amusement, neither male nor female, but sounding the way lilies smell. Whatever it looked like, she refused to tell her friends despite their increasing worry as to her situation.

When she appeared to a snack run wearing a cloak she had finished (she cursed herself for not making one sooner, she could have so many pockets and a hood on this thing!), it seemed to take even more interest than usual.

“You wear sunlight spun into a garment. You truly are your name.”

She shuddered at that.

Soon enough, though, she grew used to her strange accompaniment, until she started to miss when they wouldn’t appear.

The real icebreaker came the night it landed on her windowsill, Cowboy snoozing on the lounge not fifteen feet away.

“What is that?” Its voice was strong with curiosity.

Sunbeam paused before holding up the pink box, “These? Japanese truffle candies,” She paused again as she felt eyes she couldn’t see staring at her expectantly, “What will you trade me for one?”

“I will trade you… A moment of happiness.”

“And it will not harm me?”

“Not so long as those chocolates do me no harm.”

“No salt, no iron. It’s a deal.”

The truffle passed from bronzed hands to darkened claws, and it vanished to somewhere unseen. The Fae descended upon her, cradling her face in its hands for a moment, and for the first time, she saw its true visage; a thin “face” with pearlescent eyes, hair spun from galaxies and shining with stars. It looked emaciated, on all four pairs of arms. Then those features melted away into the glamour of someone whose features she didn’t quite remember but she knew she enjoyed.

True enough, a burst of joy surged through her. It had been a long time since she had felt romantic affection, something the Fae seemed to know, and the amber honey that flooded her was a unique sensation. Then the moment passed, the window open, her only company the snores of Cowboy.

They appeared more and more often, usually when Sunbeam was alone, but not all the time. At this point all her friends were armed to the teeth with iron, and seemed to settle into a steady stalemate with the Fae. Whispers called this Fae “The Spinner”, but nothing more.

Sunbeam was showered in gifts and advantages, although nothing that would seem to suspicious even to the knowledgeable at Elsewhere. Tiny things like food she didn’t realize wasn’t in the minifridge before, or extra money in her bank account, of gentle guidance from the paths where the Hunt prowled. She wasn’t an idiot; she knew it was building up to something, and she even had a feeling she knew what, but none of them knew how to counteract it all as her gilded cage went up bar by glittering bar.

Nobody was really surprised when she was Taken midway into the spring semester, but that didn’t mean they were okay with it.

They armed themselves with salt and steel and vervain leaves, going into the Elsewhere the night after the Wild Hunt had worn itself out.

They came out three days later, Sunbeam dozing in Cowboy’s arms, in raiments of glittering gold and amber that truly made her look like a sun.

And if Cowboy no longer commented on what color her ribbon was, nobody said anything.

Seafoam dropped her French minor, citing lack of interest, never saying how now it looked like gibberish.

Horns seemed to have lost nothing, but there was a haunted look in their eyes, and innocence is valuable to the Fair Folk indeed.

Sunbeam and her friends remained on campus even after graduation, each one finding their place among the faculty and their quests. After all, Elsewhere University was the only one that would allow her to take the three days of the full moon off a month to return to the Else and fulfill her end of the bargain.

And if anyone noted how she glowed slightly in a dark room, they said nothing.

How her eyes shone with flecks of gold or her freckles spelled out constellations.

In Elsewhere, it’s not safe to comment on what people lost and what they gained, and your safety is of _paramount_ importance to Professor Sun.


End file.
